SSC looking at return of Northeast Michigan Conference

STANDISH — The Standish-Sterling school board will look at a proposal to form a new Northeast Michigan Conference (NEMC) for all of its non-football sports programs in the 2013-2014 school year at its April 8 board meeting.

Superintendent Darren Kroczaleski said that superintendents, school board members, and athletic directors from SSC, Pinconning Area Schools, John Glenn, and Tawas met at the end of February to discuss reforming the defunct league, before taking the proposals back to their school boards.

“It helps with scheduling, because once you’re in a league like this, your dates are pretty much set,” Kroczaleski said. “You have league schools that you schedule. The biggest thing other than that is it allows athletes to get all-conference honors.

Kroczaleski said the schools would still be able to schedule games with other schools outside the conference, but this will reduce the amount of work needed to hash out a sports schedule with league games already set.

He said Pinconning, Tawas, and John Glenn have all passed the NEMC resolution as of March 18, leaving SSC as the sole district yet to take it up.

Since the former NEMC dissolved a couple years ago when member Ogemaw Heights joined the Big North Conference, Kroczaleski said SSC has been independent and unaffiliated with any leagues. Pinconning has also been unaffiliated during that time period.

Tawas had been a member of the Huron Shores League, Kroczaleski said, but once all the other schools in the league voted to join the North Star League, it was interested in entering into a new NEMC.

Football is not going to be included in the new NEMC agreement, he said, due to the size of John Glenn’s student body.

“Their high school enrollment around 900 students,” Kroczaleski said. “They’re probably more than double the size of some of the other three schools. They’re definitely bigger than anyone else.”

Kroczaleski said the conference is open to additional members, but a four-school league is still a start. The cost to the school district should be nearly nonexistent, he said, other than possibly conference dues. He expected those would be minimal if they are required.